Delhi Girls Take Fast Lane to Easy Money

In her late twenties, Ramandeep likes to live life kingsize. To support her lavish lifestyle, she and her motor biker boyfriend Jasjeet commit around five to six chain snatchings in a month. But only after her husband, who works for a transport company, leaves for work.

This and more such cases came to light last Friday when Delhi Police managed to chase and arrest this couple from east Delhi’s Krishna Nagar. They are involved in around 15 such incidents in Delhi’s upmarket areas such as Barakhamba Road, Connaught Place, Kasturba Gandhi Road and India Gate.

“Ramandeep deposited all the stolen chains at Muthoot Finance and comfortably made around `1 lakh a month,” Joint Commissioner of Police Sanjay Beniwal said.

Delhi police’s next new ad campaign might just ask people to watch out for women riding pillion on motorbikes. Several incidents of chain-snatching have been reported in the capital, in which college-going girls, riding pillion behind their boyfriends, have grabbed gold chains from women on roads and escaped well in time.

Such boy-girl chain-snatching gangs operating on the city’s roads have been keeping policemen on their toes. Their modus operandi is simple. Girls ride pillion on motorcycles with their faces covered using a “dupatta” and target women pedestrians. Last year, Delhi Police arrested 44 such women for committing snatchings and most of them were found to be college girls. In 2012, only eight such cases were reported. This shortcut to making quick money seems to be catching up. Police say many more such young female snatchers are active in the city at the moment.

“While their male accomplices drive the bike, women ride pillion and commit snatching. It has become a new trend in the city and it’s disturbing. It is really tough to nab them,” said Beniwal. These women are active mostly at traffic intersections, market places where they can find easy targets.

Many such gangs are active at various traffic intersections at Lutyens’ Delhi and busy markets such as Lajpat Nagar, Sarojini Nagar, Karol Bagh, Janpath, Chandni Chowk, R K Puram, Lodi Colony, INA Colony and Greater Kailash. In some cases, these women are employed by male snatcher gangs, said police.

These snatchers are also active at Metro stations where they wait at the platform. When the train doors are about to shut they snatch valuables from bystanders and rush into the train.

Such gangs are active in other parts of the country as well. “In Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai too, women have started committing snatching on bikes. In the recent past, many incidents have come to light,” said another IPS officer.

Loudspeaker in hand, Afghan man searches for brother...

A 31-year-old Afghan man went missing on December 31, 2011 in Karol Bagh. An interesting tale of two brothers ... One who got lost in Delhi when he came down to the city from Afghanistan for medical treatment and another who come down to Delhi to find his brother... In end both of them become good friends of mine...

Thirty one-year-old Jalaluddin Kamran from Afghanistan went missing from Karol Bagh market on New Year’s eve.

The family of the mentally challenged man has been wandering on the streets of Delhi for two weeks, searching for him.

His younger brother, Farhad Kamran, and mother Hakeema are trying to pull all strings to find Jalaluddin, after realising that the police efforts to search him have been next to negligible.

Farhad, who arrived in Delhi on January 7, has recently hired an autorickshaw and a loudspeaker at a rent of Rs 1,000, and has been travelling across the city.

He is trying to appeal to the public to help him find his brother. He travels around 100 km everyday and regularly visits Jama Masjid, Chandni Chowk, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Karol Bagh, Connaught Place, Malkaganj, Kashmere ISBT and Gautam Nagar, even AIIMS and Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital.

“If you get any clue about your brother, call me on my phone,” these are the words of an investigating officer involved in this case. Farhad is employed as an IT manager at a Kabul-based NGO, Meher Educational and Human Rights Organisation.

The family is going to seek the help of the National Human Rights Commission as they are disappointed over the way the police have taken up the matter.

“Whenever I visit Karol Bagh police station, I am made to sit before a computer to identify my brother from over a thousand photographs of unidentified bodies,” added Farhad.

Jalaluddin belongs to a middle-class family in Kabul. His mother, Hakeema, had brought Kamran to Delhi for medical treatment at Sir Ganga Ram Hospital in December.

On December 31, 2011, Jalaluddin went missing from Ajmal Khan market in Karol Bagh while Hakeema was shopping. Hakeema filed a missing person complaint with Karol Bagh police station. Farhad reached Delhi on January 7 in search of his brother. Farhad has been regularly visiting mosques, gurdwaras, dargahs, hospitals, railway and bus stations.

“I have arranged a list of night shelters in Delhi. Out of 64, I have already visited over 30. I have hired some boys to distribute and paste pamphlets about Jalaluddin across the city,” he said.

Moreover, after hearing their names, some people suspect them as associates of terrorist outfits.

“I have come across many who blatantly ask me if my brother is a terrorist. One evening, a group of young men tried to assault us. We had to flee from the place to save ourselves,” he added.

The family has also visitedthe Afghan embassy twice and the embassy officials have assured them help through the Indian Ministry of External Affairs.

He finds missing brother

Five-month search for mentally challenged sibling leads to Kurukshetra

After seeing over 100 unclaimed bodies at mortuaries across the city, visiting 174 private and government hospitals, looking at dingy lanes, markets and religious places — temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras — and bus stops in the capital and neighbouring cities for the last 151 days, a 30-year-old man from Afghanistan traced his missing mentally challenged elder brother at Kurukshetra in Haryana on Wednesday.

Jalaluddin Kamran, who belongs to a middle-class family in Kabul, and his 65-year-old mother Hakeema, had brought him to Delhi for treatment at Ganga Ram Hospital in
December.

He went missing from Karol Bagh on December 30 last year. Unable to find him, Hakeema approached Karol Bagh police station and a missing person complaint was registered on December 31.

Hakeema’s other son, Farhad Kamran, who was working as an IT engineer at a Kabul-based NGO, Meher Educational and Human Rights Organisation, flew to Delhi on January 7 to trace his elder brother. He landed in Delhi with a list of hospitals, religious places, police stations, road maps and shelter houses.

“From January onwards, we started putting pamphlets across the capital. There is not a single lane that we have not pasted the pamphlets,” Farhad told Deccan Herald.
After that, Farhad for a few days hired a taxi and started visiting all religious places — where food is provide free of cost. Then he hired an autorickshaw and a loudspeaker  and travelled around for one-and-a-half month.

Realising that the police efforts to search his brother was negligible during the initial days, Farhad and his mother tried to pull all strings to find Jalaluddin.

“Seeing our efforts, Devesh Srivastava, additional commissioner of police (central), formed a special team to help me find my brother. Ram Singh, station house officer of Karol Bagh, too pitched in for help,” Farhad said, thanking the police officials for their support.

People around were losing hope. But he did not give up. “I was taught in school that ‘where there’s a will there’s a way’ and this kept me going. Apart from that, when I saw my mother every morning with pamphlets in one hand and glue in the other, my determination grew stronger,” said Farhad. He lost his job in Kabul and spent almost all the money his family had.

Despite facing problems at the Foreigner Regional Registration Office over  visa and being treated badly in some instances, he kept on looking for his brother. His search ended on Wednesday.

“A neighbour, Kubul Ahmed, at the guest house was going to Punjab to a visit a dargah on Wednesday. I handed him 50 pamphlets and asked him to distribute wherever he went.

When his bus stopped at a roadside eatery at Kurukshetra, he distributed a few pamphlets and moved on. All of a sudden, I received a call from a tea vendor that a man in the pamphlet and a man standing in front of him looked similar and he was asking for water,” said Farhad.

Hearing this, Farhad asked the vendor to keep a watch over the man for an hour.

Meanwhile, he called Karol Bagh police station and asked the officials to get in touch with the local police in Kurukshetra. Within an hour, the local police took that man into custody.

He rushed to Kurukshetra. “When I entered Shahabad police station, I found my brother in tattered conditions,” Farhad said with teary eyes. Now, with no money left, he is wondering whether he will be able to get medical help for his brother, who is also suffering from physical injuries.

I wrote for Deccan Herald

Why people protest at Jantar Mantar?

When King Jai Singh II of Jaipur built Jantar Mantar in 1724 as an astronomical observatory, he would never have imagined that the place will become more famous across the world for another reason – as an epicentre of protests and demonstrations.
   

From political parties to anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare, those protesting against the government or just an individual, they all want to sit in at Jantar Mantar. 

Over the years, the landmark red structure located just off Connaught Place has been forgotten as a monument and is known more as a protest site. Originally built as a tool for calculations, Jantar Mantar is no more famous for as an astronomical observatory meant to graph the path of celestial bodies. Over the past two decades, it has become a place where people from across the country come to voice their concerns and demands.

And more recently, the monument in the Capital has become the hub of what can be called one of India’s biggest mass movements against corruption, led by Anna Hazare. To be precise, the venue of unending protests is not the monument itself, but the adjacent Jantar Mantar Road. “The place which is allotted to the protesters is just a half-kilometre stretch of Jantar Mantar road from Tolstoy Road till Ashoka Road circle, and particularly the 300-metre stretch behind YMCA international Guest House,” Anil Kumar, station house officer of Parliament Street police station, said.

Always a crowded place

This stretch is continuously flooded with people, all seated under pitched tents and peacefully protesting for varied causes. Holding placards, distributing pamphlets, shouting slogans and, at times, marching on Parliament Street, the demonstrators sit there from dawn to dusk. 

The place is also a hub of sorts for photojournalists.

The small eateries, kiosks, tea shops on this stretch have no dearth of customers round-the-year. Protesters have been been heading towards Jantar Mantar particularly from around 1989, after an intervention by the Supreme Court shut them off from Boat Club, a place nearer to Parliament House. Before Jantar Mantar, it was at Boat Club lawns – running along both sides of Rajpath – where political parties and others gathered to register their protest.

From Boat Club to Jantar Mantar

Things changed after October 1988. Mahendra Singh Tikait led thousands of farmers from Uttar Pradesh, along with their cattle, to the lawns of Boat Club. They took   over the place for about a week. Tikait supporters lit campfires on the lawns and  cooked their food there, Cattle dung piled up.  A public interest litigation (PIL) was then filed in the Supreme Court, asking that the government should find a new place for protests in the Capital.  “Thereafter, Jantar Mantar became a site for peaceful protests where crowds of up to 5000 were allowed. Similarly, Ramlila Ground became a place for peaceful rallies where  crowds up to 50,000 were allowed,” said Delhi Police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat.  

From January 2006 to 2010, about 15,000 dharnas and 7,000 demonstrations, rallies and processions, altogether involving some two lakh people, were held at Jantar Mantar, said Anil Kumar.

But the biggest crowds came later.

When Anna Hazare started an indefinite hunger strike in April 5, 2011 to exert pressure on the government to bring in a stringent anti-corruption law bill, Jantar Mantar Road became the centre of his movement. People came from across the nation to vent their anger.   The fast, which ended on April 9 — a day after the government accepted Hazare’s demands — witnessed a crowd of around 50,000 people.  Since then, police have come up with 21- point guidelines for the protesters to maintain law and order situation in the heart of the capital.

Police have made it mandatory for organisers of protests to take a no objection certificate from the land owning authority before holding a rally. The organisers have to make arrangements for drinking water and medical aid at the protest site and they must not let normal flow of traffic to be hampered. The guidelines also prohibit provocative speeches that may offend people from any group, religion or caste.

“It is only after protesters ensure in writing to abide by the apex court guidelines, that they are granted permission,” said Bhagat.

With four or five protests happening every day at Jantar Mantar Road, local residents have sought restrictions. They have lodged complaints with the Parliament Street and Connaught Place police stations, saying the agitations have made their lives miserable. They have also gone to court.

The High Court has asked the government to look for new protest sites, while ensuring that protesters are not denied the right to express their point of view. With the government now scouting for a new site, Jantar Mantar might perhaps return being known for what Jai Singh II had intended it to be – an astronomical observatory.

This was written by me and was published in Deccan Herald

Unseen enemies lurk at home

KILL ZONE: TERRORISTS TARGET COUNTRY’S CAPITAL TO GET MAXIMUM ATTENTION

By virtue of being the capital of the world’s largest democracy, Delhi is a prime target of terrorist groups, and countering them has become a major challenge for security agencies. With the arrest of five Indian Mujahideen members this month and deportation of another, security agencies have managed to foil a major attack in the city.

But the presence of sleeper cells of terror operatives in Delhi has become a major concern as there are fresh threats of terror strikes in the upcoming festival season.

From the 2001 Parliament attack case to the bomb attack on an Israeli diplomat on February 13 this year, Delhi has seen over a dozen terror attacks with hundreds of people killed and thousands injured.

Why Delhi

There is a perpetual terror threat in the Capital. The main goal of Indian Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and Lashkar-e-Toiba is to strike Delhi the hardest.

“Since it’s the national capital, terror outfits think that carrying out strikes here will have international implications, and the world will acknowledge their act of insane brutality. There is always a terror threat in Delhi,” said a senior police officer who, for the last two decades, has been involved in counter-terrorist operations in Delhi.

Sharing his twenty years of experience, the officer said members of terror outfits are fanatical people and their main motive is to create panic among people. “Remorseless, these men don’t show any sign of guilt on their face. They are tough nuts to crack. If caught they try to justify their doings,” he said.

Changes in trend

In the last decade, security agencies have seen changes in terror activities in Delhi. Earlier, foreign terrorists were directly involved in carrying out strikes in the city. They would enter India through one of the numerous porous borders that India share with Bangladesh and Nepal. They would strike and then flee via the same route.

Over the years some terrorist organisations started setting up bases in Delhi, and lately they have been successful in motivating some local residents to run homegrown terror modules.

“Things have changed a lot. Now homegrown terror modules are carrying out strikes in the city on directions from terrorists holed up in Pakistan and West Asian countries,” said the officer.

Citing the Parliament attack in 2001, the officer said that on December 13, 2001, five gunmen infiltrated Parliament House in a car bearing the Union home ministry’s and Parliament’s stickers, and opened up in a ‘suicide attack’. The assault was carried out by members of LeT and Jaish-e-Mohammed, who came from Pakistan. They also got help from local sympathisers in India.

Homegrown terror outfit

From 2006 onwards, homegrown terror module — Indian Mujahideen — formed by five students in Bhatkal in Karnataka in 2003, started carrying out attacks across the country.

IM was engineered with the help of Pakistani intelligence and LeT to spread terror in India.

The influence of conservative Islam, and funding from Pakistan and the Middle East, helped radicalise youth members of the banned Students’ Islamic Movement of India, ultimately achieving the goal of making homegrown terrorists.

Riyaz Bhatkal, Iqbal Bhatkal, Aamir, Mohammad Tariq Anjuman Hasan and Fasih Mahmood transformed SIMI into Indian Mujahideen.

On September 13, 2008, IM members for the first time carried our serial blasts within 45 minutes in Connaught Place, Karol Bagh’s Gaffar market and M-Block market in Greater Kailash-1 in south Delhi. At least 25 people were killed and over 100 were injured.

Since then the homegrown terror outfit has carried out five attacks in Delhi. Before that, attacks in the Capital were carried out by Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami and LeT.

Police have managed to bust three IM terror modules so far, and some 30 terrorists have been arrested within four years.

Anti-terror wing under flak

The anti-terror wing of the Delhi police special cell has also faced criticism from various organisations and government representatives after the Batla House encounter, which took place on September 19, 2008. The cops had launched an operation against suspected IM members in Batla House area in Jamia Nagar.

Two suspected terrorists, Atif Amin and Mohamed Sajid, were killed and two other suspects Mohammad Saif and Zeeshan were arrested. Another accused Ariz Khan managed to escape. Encounter specialist and inspector Mohan Chand Sharma, who led the operation, was also killed in the firefight.

After this operation the anti-terror wing of Delhi police was put on the back burner for almost two years. The Jamia Teachers’ Solidarity Association, which was formed after the Batla House encounter, recently released a report alleging that the special cell had arrested 14 innocent people for terror activities, who were acquitted by court.

Refuting the allegation, Delhi police spokesperson Rajan Bhagat said that six cases out of the 16 referred to in the report have actually ended in conviction, while one case is pending trial.

“One case has not been investigated by the special cell at all. Of the eight cases that ended in acquittal, in five cases our appeals are pending against the order of the trial court before the Delhi High Court,” he said.

Special cell revived now

It was after B K Gupta took charge as the police commissioner on November 10, 2010, that the special cell got a new lease of life.

He brought in some good counter-terror officers — Ashok Chand and Sanjeev Kumar Yadav — in the cell. The team, under additional commissioner Ashok Chand, busted two terror modules with the arrest of 18 terrorists.

Recent arrests and threats

In last few months intelligence have manged to nab four top terrorists -- Abu Jundal, Fasih Mohamed, Abdul Karim Tunda and Yasin Bhatkal.

Five suspected IM members were also arrested for involvement in the August 1 Pune serial blasts. With their arrest police found out that they had plans to carry out blasts in Delhi and Bihar in the upcoming festival season.

Sayed Maqbool, who hails from Maharashtra’s Nanded district, was arrested in Hyderabad on Tuesday for executing the blasts.

Earlier, police had arrested Asad Khan, 33, and Imran Khan, 31, from their hideouts in south-east Delhi’s Pul Prahladpur on September 26. Sayed Feroz alias Hamza, 38, was nabbed in Nizamuddin railway station on October 1 and Landge Irfan Mustafa, 30, was arrested in Jaipur on October 10.

“We have managed to bust the IM module behind the Pune bombings, but we are aware that over two dozen operatives are still at large. We also completely agree that there may be many more who are yet to be identified. We are trying to unearth the entire group by interrogating the arrested operatives. We will keep gathering intelligence about possible suspects,” said special commissioner of police (special cell) S Srivastava.

Security agencies have also managed to bring two terrorists from Saudi Arabia recently — Fasih Mahmood, one of IM’s founders, and Abu Jundal, LeT member who also plotted the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, Abdul Karim Tunda, LeT member, and Yasin Bhatkal, IM founder.

Security tightened

Police have identified hundreds of vulnerable locations were terrorists may strike in the upcoming festivals. They have tightened security in those areas, and are gathering intelligence about possible terror activities in Delhi.

Additional armed teams have been deployed in several areas, and Quick Reaction Team commandos armed with sophisticated weapons have also sent to various locations.

“Security has been beefed up and additional forces have been deployed to ensure safety. All security mechanisms have been put into place," said Rajan Bhagat.

This story was written by me and was published in Deccan Herald